


Global Warming

by stonecarapace



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Angst, Immortality, Introspection, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:24:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonecarapace/pseuds/stonecarapace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immortality isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Marceline missing those she's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Global Warming

These alone are eternal: The path of the sun, the paths of the stars, Stormo’s resilience, and Marceline the Vampire Queen. All else will end or has ended.

It’s a problem.

After the first two hundred years, Marceline thought that she had this immortality thing down pat—love people, wait as they age and die, watch mutations sweep the population, witness civilizations rise and pretend not to fall as the Lich King picks away at their base. Other things lasted longer: Simon, for one, though she’s not sure his kind of alive really counts. Her dad, for what _that’s_ worth. The longer she lives, the more ghosts and vampires and other vaguely undead creatures crop up like see-through, unhappy weeds. The Lich King is tolerable, when he’s on another continent. Some of the creatures of the deep sea are pretty cool.

So by the time Marceline hit five hundred, she’d had plenty of time to learn to ignore the fleshy mutants who were doomed, no matter how hard they struggled. She never did learn, of course. Of course. On her five hundred and forty-seventh birthday, she drank a sweet slice of red velvet cake and tried not to cry over her latest true love, who she’d spent twenty-seven years watching die. Marceline wasn’t sure who was dumber—her or the princess—but let’s get real, mortals were totally junk at comprehending _no, really, I’m gonna keep living for another ten thousand years,_ and Marceline’s always been terrible at keeping her emotions in check.

At her thousand-year birthday, she hung out with Simon in spite of herself. She promised, for the ten thousandth time, that she wouldn’t make friends with mortals. Even crazed rambling was better than constant loss. At least he couldn’t leave her.

Then Bonnie happened. What a trip _that_ girl was—crazy enough, even, to make Goliad and Stormo.

Marceline has to hand it to her—it is kind of nice having the freaks around. When she finds herself missing Finn or Bonnie, she just needs to find those weirdos, and the pain is soothed a little. (She will never agree with the voice in the back of her head that says she could mend her heart if she stopped reopening old wounds. She has a better memory than that.)

The problem with Goliad and Stormo is that they’re forever locked in a psychic standoff, so at any given time, ninety-seven percent of their brains are focused on each other. Bonnie explained that the remaining three percent went to self-preservation—so if the Candy Kingdom were to be nuked, for example, they would saunter off to the safest place they could and keep duking it out. However, that three percent isn’t enough to interact with the outside world—making them the most overpowered walls Marceline’s ever talked to.

The cave they’re in now is sacred to most people, though they don’t really understand why. It hasn’t been touched by adventurers for three hundred years—not since the fires. Only Marceline has braved the barren caverns in all that time.

The sun is at its highest point outside, and Marceline would be wary of going out, protected or not. It’s hotter now than it ever was, and if she’s not careful, even sunrises can burn her if she’s in weak shade. (Flame Princess’s doing, go figure. At least Marceline deals with her heartbreaks by adding to her bloated musical repertoire.) Lucky for Marceline, half a millennium ago some golems dug out complex tunnels that she can access safely. The entrance is in a rainforest with thick canopies and vines that drape like heavy curtains; even weak sunlight can’t reach the ground there. The tunnel down is covered in a cool sheet of moss that only parts when Marceline rips it from the ground.

The past few days, she’s had trouble sleeping, and it’s not like she can mess around outside when it’s this sunny—so she’s deep underground, perched on Goliad’s back. She’s not hungry and the act is automatic, but she sinks her teeth into Goliad’s fur and slurps the pink out of her shoulders. It’s too bitter.

With a sigh, Marceline detaches from Goliad and floats toward Stormo. His golden hair sweeps down to the floor in elegant tresses. Marceline nestles into it and rests her head on his paw. “Hmm.” Stormo doesn’t move. “ _Hmmm,_ ” Marceline tries. Nothing. With a sigh, Marceline starts to hum a familiar tune—an ode she wrote about Finn and used at every turn to embarrass him in front of new acquaintances. (It may have mentioned the glass-shattering quality of his screams.) Although it always got a rise out of Finn, Stormo doesn’t seem to mind it.

Duh. He’s a globbing psychic gryphon.

“Ugh! Whatever!” Marceline bursts from his hair and shakes the stray strands off. “You’re the idiot who went and got yourself killed!” She rounds on Goliad and points an accusing finger at the feline’s blank face. “You’re not off the hook, either, _princess._ ” Her face is hot and her skin prickles. “Listen, you—ugh! Why am I even talking to you? You’re not her, and _you’re_ not Finn—and—“

Marceline rushes out of the cave, through the maze the tunnels, one after another, her hair flying behind her, the temperature rising as she goes, humiliated and angry because what _is_ she, some crazy dumb senile old _mortal freak_ —

Marceline breaks out of the sheet of moss that covered the tunnel. The air on the surface is warm and sticky with humidity. The sun can’t reach through the thick canopy—but the pain washes over her like clockwork.


End file.
